NEAT CATTLE 219 



before, but ruminates more lazily. In lew days a natu« 

 ral diarrhoea comes on, and then the animal is well 

 again ; or a purgative is given, and a cure is soou 

 effected. 



At other times the animal is dull, heavy and languid , 

 the ears droop, the back is bowed, she separates from the 

 herd, refuses food, and ceases to ruminate. Again she 

 is better, and then suddenly changes to worse ; the urine 

 assumes a dark color, resembling foul coffee or porter 

 it increases in quantity, and is sometimes discharged 

 with difficulty and in little jets. The milk diminishes, 

 and acquires a tinge of yellow or brown, and the taste is 

 unpleasant. The pulse is accelerated to sixty or seventy 

 beats a minute. The skin is yellow, but of a darker 

 yellow than in jaundice ; it has a tinge of brown. The 

 urine becomes of a darker hue, and is almost black. 

 Sometimes the animal shrinks when the loins are 

 pressed, but not usually, nor so much as in acute red- 

 water. There is loss of condition and general debility, 

 and the legs and ears are cold. In every stage there is 

 costiveness very difficult to remove, yet generally there 

 was violent diarrhoea at the beginning, which suddenly 

 stopped. The dark color of the urine is caused by viti- 

 ated bile, not by blood, as in acute red-water. 



An examination, after death, shows that the contents 

 of the man/plus, or third stomach, are perfectly dry and 

 almost as hard as though they had been baked. This 

 is doubtless the disorder which many farmers call dry 

 belly-ache; and some call it dry murrain. The liver 

 is inflamed, and darker than usual ; the gall bladder is 

 full to distention, and the bile is thick and black. These 

 circumstances show that the seat of the disease is in the 

 liver, and that the gall is obstructed in its passage to the 

 intestines ; and indigestion is the result. 



Remedy. As in this disease constipation of the bowels 

 is generally obstinate, back-rake, and give an exciting 

 injection ; then give a good dose of physic, with ginger, 

 or other stimulant, and if there be no operation in six or 

 eight hours, repeat, in half doses, and continue mild 

 injections occasionally, until an operation of the physic. 

 Give also warming teas, such as sage, peppermint, ice 



